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Category: Global conflict

nazanin Global conflict 

The lethal error in appeasing Iran

Melanie, , ,

When the Obama-brokered Iran nuclear deal was signed in 2015, one of the many spurious reasons offered for that agreement was that it would help the supposedly moderate Iranian President Hassan Rouhani draw the sting of the Islamic regime’s extremism. Now Rouhani is no longer bothering to conceal his real side. Addressing the annual Islamic Unity Conference in Tehran last weekend, Rouhani called Israel a “cancerous tumor” that was formed as a result of World War II. Descending to full-blown Jewish-conspiracy theory, he said: “They deployed a power in the…

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nazanin Britain Global conflict 

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: the human cost of Britain’s appeasement of Iran

Melanie,

It’s wonderful that the British academic Matthew Hedges is now safely back in Britain after six months in jail in the United Arab Emirates. He faced the seemingly implausible charge of being a British spy, which both he and the British government strenuously denied, and was sentenced to life imprisonment after a farcical five-minute court hearing last week. (Since writing this, readers have questioned whether he really was just a PhD student given his previous work with defence consultancies. We cannot know, but it still seems to me implausible that…

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Christians Global conflict 

The shameful abandonment of Asia Bibi

Melanie, , ,

It is hard to think of a more deserving case for asylum than Asia Bibi. A Christian in Pakistan, Asia Bibi has been freed after eight years in solitary confinement on death row for committing blasphemy, a crime of which she has now been acquitted by Pakistan’s supreme court. The accusation against her was a travesty. As she picked berries with other Punjabi farmworkers in June 2009, a quarrel developed with two Muslim women after she was asked to fetch water and they said they wouldn’t drink from a vessel…

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Khashoggi Global conflict 

The story behind the story of Jamal Khashoggi

Melanie, , ,

The disappearance and presumed murder of the Saudi exile Jamal Khashoggi has caused a crisis of relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia. Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to sign some papers relating to his marriage and never emerged again. Lurid accounts claim he was murdered in the consulate by a 15-strong team flown from Saudi Arabia the previous day in order to kill him. This almost exclusively Turkish and Qatari narrative includes claims that a pathologist on this team dismembered Khashoggi’s body while he was still…

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Haley's Global conflict Israel 

As Haley’s comet passes, the UN itself must now become a fallen star

Melanie, , ,

The sudden announcement of Nikki Haley’s resignation from her post as America’s ambassador to the UN at the end of the year has dismayed Israel’s supporters, and with good reason. Her willingness to call out the despots and tyrants who have turned the UN into a theater of bigotry, injustice and hypocrisy against Israel has been an object lesson in principled and muscular diplomacy which displayed both high skill and charm. In a universe of western appeasers, she displayed something which that world has all but lost: the moral courage…

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Global conflict 

The hysteria over Helsinki and the real threat to the free world

Melanie, , ,

The behaviour of President Donald Trump following his meeting with Russia’s President Putin in Helsinki, and the reaction to what he said, illustrate two things: first, the flaws in Trump’s personality; and second the ever-more hysterical and misleading reaction and double standards (Obama’s “Russia reset”, anyone?) by a media and political class which views absolutely everything Trump says or does through a distorting prism of pure malice. The near-universal media story following the Helsinki press conference (echoed by Democrats and even some Republicans) was that Trump had kow-towed to Putin…

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Iran Global conflict 

The Iran opportunity and European infamy

Melanie, , ,

A senior Iranian official has accused Israel of stealing its clouds. Yes, you read that right. Clouds as in the sky. Brigadier General Gholam Reza Jalali, head of Iran’s Civil Defense Organization, has said: “Israel and another country in the region have joint teams which work to ensure clouds entering Iranian skies are unable to release rain. On top of that, we are facing the issue of cloud and snow theft.” His evidence? A survey showing that all mountainous areas higher than 2,200 meters between Afghanistan and the Mediterranean were…

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antisemitism Global conflict Israel 

The hurdles in front of the Trump peace plan

Melanie, , ,

President Trump’s peace plan for Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, his attempt at the “deal of the century,” will apparently soon be revealed to the world. His envoys, Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, have been making the rounds in the region to get Arab allies on board. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhau has paid a visit to the King of Jordan. No one yet knows the terms of this deal. Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has refused even to talk to the United States about it and has presumptively rejected…

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antisemitism Global conflict 

Marching in lockstep: Islamization and antisemitism

Melanie, , ,

Marching in lockstep: Islamization and antisemitism Once again, Hezbollah flags flew in London last weekend at the Iran-supporting “Al Quds” march in Britain’s capital city. Hezbollah, the proxy army of the Iranian regime, is responsible for numerous murderous attacks around the world against Jews, Americans and other Western interests. No matter. The march—an annual London fixture, no less—featured calls for Israel to be wiped from the map, and was led by a man who previously made the deranged claim that “Zionists” were behind an appalling London apartment block fire last…

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mortal danger Global conflict 

Just who is the mortal danger to the free world?

Melanie, , ,

Determined, of course, to present US President Trump as a mortal danger to humanity for meeting and signing an agreement with North Korea’s Chairman Kim Jong-un, the Trumpohobes have been in full cry this morning claiming that the President suddenly announced a suspension of joint military exercises with South Korea, something that wasn’t in the signed agreement. This, we are told, is stunning evidence – proof positive! – that at a stroke Trump has imperilled the free world in return for nothing from Kim (thus echoing North Korea’s own propaganda).…

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